


Reaching out Only to Find Nothing There

by pushingcrazies



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Post-Reichenbach, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-16
Updated: 2012-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-30 21:17:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/336260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pushingcrazies/pseuds/pushingcrazies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Fall, John isn’t the only one suffering.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reaching out Only to Find Nothing There

Molly is used to being overlooked and ignored, so maybe that was why, while everyone is busy fawning over and coddling John Watson, her eyes fall instinctively on Gregory Lestrade.  He is standing in the back of the funeral parlour, eyes down, looking like the beaten dog he is.  Sherlock isn’t the only one who has been discredited this week; in fact, it is miracle Lestrade hasn’t lost his job in the aftermath of the scandal.  Molly stares at him until he looks up and she gestures for him to join her and John at the front.  He shakes his head, looking sick, and goes back to contemplating the ground.

When Mycroft stands up to do the eulogy (it should have been John, everyone said, but he declined.  She couldn’t blame him), Lestrade slips out the door into the small front garden.  Molly wishes she could follow him, but she is supposed to be playing the part of the distraught, lovesick woman.  She has never been a very good actress (she can barely hold a normal conversation without sticking her foot in her mouth), but Sherlock _needs_ her for this, and so she is willing to sit tight and watch one of her best friends crumble before her eyes.

After the service, everyone files down to the gravesite (it was a surprising turnout, though most of the guests were part of Sherlock’s homeless network, so she’s not sure how surprised she really is in the end) except for Lestrade.  He watches them go, the same look of self-hatred on his face.  Molly knows he never really doubted Sherlock, deep down inside, but he still blames himself for the way things turned out.  She wants to take his face in her hands and tell him he is a good man.  She knows he won’t believe her.

He catches sight of her and his face instantly transforms from grief to paternal concern..  “How are you holding up,” he asks.  Always worried about the other person, always putting them before himself.  She understands the impulse, but she hates the way it must make him feel inside.

“I’m doing okay,” she says.  She tries to inject as much grief (distraught, Sherlock had been very specific that she must act _distraught_ ) into her voice as possible.  “I’m a little worried about John, but he’s got enough people comforting him.  Too many, I think.  He doesn’t know what to do with them.  How are _you_ doing?

He shakes his head dismissively and doesn’t say anything.

“Are you going down to the grave?”

“No,” he says.  “You go on without me.”

She doesn’t want to leave him, but to stay would be out of character.  She waffles for a moment, then reaches up to place a kiss on his cheek.  The tears in her eyes are real as she says, “It will get better.  It has to.”  She runs off before she misses the lowering of the body into the ground.

 _I have to tell him_ , she texts Sherlock later that day on the number he swears is untraceable even for the likes of Mycroft.

 _You cannot tell him,_ he replies.  _John must not know._

 _I meant Lestrade_.

There is no answer for several hours after that.  When Sherlock does reply, it is with an address and a location within that address.  Molly goes there and breaks in using the skills Sherlock taught her years before.  She has never had occasion to use them before, but she still remembers what to do and how the lock feels as it gives way beneath her fingers.

It is Lestrade’s new flat, the one he moved into after he and his wife split for good.  The location is a floorboard in the bedroom; she pries it open and discovers a handgun there.  She takes the handgun.  She does not think about the fact that it is now half ten at night and Lestrade still isn’t home.

Three days later, he comes into St. Bart’s with his hand a bloody mess, pieces of glass sticking out of it, blood dripping all over the floor.  She sets to work cleaning him up, almost afraid to ask what happened.

He tells her anyway.  “I punched a mirror.”

She nods sympathetically, then realises maybe she should be acting more curious.  “Why would you do something like that?”

“I felt…” He trails off.  She expects him to end the sentence with “angry” or “depressed” but then she realises he said exactly what he meant: for the first time since Sherlock’s suicide – no, before that – since he was asked to arrest Sherlock, he wanted to _feel_ something.

“Did it help?” she asks.

He does not answer.  Instead he says, “Someone took my gun.”

“Really?”  Is that the right response?  No, she’s not supposed to know about the gun. “You have a gun?”  Hoping he doesn’t hear the falter in her voice.

“I did. Only two people knew about it.  Well, three, but I doubt my ex would have the know-how to pick my lock.”

She makes a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat.

He shakes his head, thinking. “It must have been John.  I can’t think of anyone else…”

“Have you seen him?”  She is trying to get him off the topic without being too obvious.  “You know…since?”  She takes his chagrined silence for a negative.  “You should.  You two need each other.  Only you really understand what each other is going through.”  She finishes the last stitch on his hand and he pulls away from her.

“I’ll think about it,” he says.

She wants to yell at him to not pull away from her or John or anyone else.  To not torture himself like this.  She wants to tell him it wasn’t his fault, that Sherlock is still alive and biding his time.  That he and John could find comfort in each other they could not find anywhere else.

Instead, she watches helplessly as he walks out the door.


End file.
